Thursday, May 28, 2020

the old destinations
in the neighborhood
the shut down restaurant
where we all worked
seem silly, dramatic like
ancient ruins
the sleeping windows
summer humidity
rounding off the edges
quiet streets
lights changing for no one
crossing diagonal
soft warm rain
the way the air feels
on my thin dress
bare legs
thin shoes on the sidewalk
pregnant with nostalgia
for something that wasn't
I laugh about
feeling so motherly
towards the nothing

when we had supervised visits with mom
we would meet at this depressing daycare
on Grand Ave
we would all sit on the floor together
one of those rugs with roads and street signs
it smelled like old french fries
I don’t remember what we talked about
we would play Mario Kart
there were other sad kids and parents
sticky beanbag chairs
after a certain number of visits
we were allowed to go for walks
we would go to Coffee with a Beat
I always got a poppyseed bagel with butter
I don’t remember what we talked about

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

as an analogy, think of a football stadium:the entire stadium is the atom, a marble at its center is its
nucleus, and the specks of pollen floating around in the stadium
are its electrons-everything except the marble and the pollen grains is just empty space

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

the textbook describes
serous membranes
as similar to
beanbag chairs
and shows the heart
sitting comfortably
truly, like
we're just full
of packing materials
I remember how
the ancient Egyptians
preparing a mummy
would put all the organs
in separate jars
except the heart
which Anubis weighed
against a feather
to calculate
the price of postage
for the long
journey
to the underworld
I bottle mine
send it
downstream
a correspondence
a tiny boat pulled
towards Nut's mouth
as she swallows the sun
to be reborn
tomorrow

I took myself
to the site of the fantasy
which is the park
next to the community garden
it's a grassy hill
I see a horse
one horse
I came here
to see what would happen
and because I'm free
the park where I imagine
us breaking all the rules
on site I'm turned on
by the hot wind
wearing the thinnest shirt
I have, it's silk
an ancient blessing
the reality is
that the site of the fantasy
is relatively crowded
the wanderer who
keeps dropping down
close by, the dad
and his kids who arrived
with energy, ready
to retrieve something from a tree
I hate nothing more
than this kind of task
moving things around
transferring an object
from one place to another
2 horses now
a dead crow (shredded)
sticking out of the grass like
halloween or shark fin soup
I'm sure the dad saw
the shape of my boobs perfectly
because it's the thinnest shirt ever
hunching forward now
for the wanderer

the way the sun comes through
my eyelids, the sun comes in
and the wind passes by

I reject outward worship but
do it (the sun, wind)

to snap out of unfounded
love, eventually

coming home to pee

how the sun hits each leaf
like food coloring
each leaf like
a candle wick

Monday, May 11, 2020

thought about sex and cried
everything that's wrong
all the cones etc.
the sleeping, spinning lights

thought of all the times
I've done this drive
in groups
with wet clothes

I got out at Venice
the wide, unwelcoming shore
now dark and busy

I saw the plankton glowing
in the crests of the waves
me and everybody else

I saw the heart on the ferris wheel
and the heart reflected in the runoff

once I got so high at this beach
that I drove away with
my wallet on top of the car
it had $300 cash inside
the only money to my name
working for the street artist
at the Chateau Marmont
we made these show posters
with dream lineups but
the vinyl stickers came fucked up
people got seriously on the phone about it
in French, shouting "Bod Dylan"

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Liverpoor? Sot a bit of it! His braynes coolt parritch, his pelt nassy, his heart's adrone, his bluidstreams acrawl, his puff but a piff, his extremities extremely so: Fengless, Pawmbroke, Chilblaimend and Baldowl. Humph is in his doge. Words weigh no more to him than raindrips to Rethfernhim. Which we all like. Rain. When we sleep. Drops. But wait until our sleeping. Drain. Sdops.

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

new pen in the sun
besides, the sun
is the best artist
so, really you
and I
ate some cake
today the sun
is uplifting, loud

I hope it's the cake
and not the unprotection

my whole life
I kept my mess in check
just haven't made one
that time she saidyou don't have to clean up
and I wept

you might
know who you are

***

I recorded a dream
in emergency red pen
on the back of my flash
dad's torso covered in
ratchet acrostics
I envied them
he wore a towel
and behaved like a fly
when I came with my case
buzz jumping
shape shifting

****

that day we sat around
drinking coffee in the esun
as if cute, rare

you sweating in
NY clothes
good to boil a little
I thought missing
you a lil

Monday, April 27, 2020

Society, which will reorganize production on the basis of a free and equal association of producers, will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into a museum of antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe.

the local character who wears the
Santa Claus blazer told me
the world was endingin 15 seconds, 15 seconds 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8...
I see Santa Claus Blazer
out and about in Covid World
way more than I ever did before

lounging on the stoops
walking in the middle of the empty street
scarf draped, sounding off

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

call Grandma to
open the door on dark
the desert mystery
in her day they never ran out of equipment
everything was reusablenow they use cheap plastic crap why'd they make that switch anyway?we wouldn't be in this mess
she had a shift running bedpans
and sharps through the autoclave I'd dip the gloves in germicideand line them up on this rack wrap up a bundle of thermometers andshake them in disinfectant the metal hypodermic needles could be sanitized too you filled them from vials with rubber stoppers
she slips into a memory
of walking in on a fellow nurse
injecting morphine in the bathroom she had been refilling the vials with sterile water the hospital tried to cover it upput her up in a room on another floor with a regimen to ween her offI went in to administer her dose she had all the lights off and said "no no don't turn them on, just use a flashlight or something"

the dark

then Uncle Henry
sneaking out of the house
she drops the image ofthe open windowcurtains blowing

d-a-r-k
d-a-r-k
dark
dark
dark

slides into another story
of Mom conning her out of some cash
a feast's worth of groceries
for a fake party
she slipped out to pick up
an imaginary implement
and didn't come back5 o'clock 6 o'clock7 o'clock and she wasn't homeno guests either the sun was settingI called the cops they couldn't do anythingbut tell me there hadn't beenany accidents on the highway

d
a
r
k

in bed fading
after the chapter on Palestine
....apartheid... a convo......
our Palestinian boss at the restaurant
...sandy stone walls &Kayla
Passover
the hanging gardens of Haifa
bombs over busses
dropping my book

a classic storm at midnight
cymbals crash in the alley
white light
then I'm in a wet city
like New Orleans
where you ride an elevated train along the waterfront
called "Aldonius Avenue"
painted tugboats and scrappy houses
bobbing
heavy plaster columns
with decorative yellow and green dragons swirling up their trunks
coming slanted out of the canal
fallen by design
we ride to the southernmost tip of town
a ferry depot
grand like an opera house in the mist

I feel afraid
because I miss the dark solitude
that gives my brain that space
am I doing the right thing
I miss New York
I miss lonely + Livia
and mom
and cold
I think

***

How to maintain the desire to write poetry?
More than one snippet
one flat, southern california snippet
cut from the cloth

I wonder when Livia will be home
I hope we can go to Saturn or something
I want a french fry
then a bar at midnight
it is sunday night

we collectively hate the restaurant called "burger."
all lower case with a period

sunday night what's up?
there is something at the catalyst but
I don't know who they are and I don't
feel like looking them up because
they don't look good

there are lots of good people in this world

watch out for the little skunk in the yard
when you're coming home Livia!
That would be too bad to get sprayed
with a skunk on the eve of your 21st

***

I had a dream that
I felt kind of scared and vulnerable
lots of people I knew
didn't want breakfast just yet etc.
she kept knocking hard on the door
and I knew she wanted to introduce me
to the boys I was to choose from
they were nearly jumping up and down
I don't remember how it went down but
it seemed like she got first dibs while
I was changing

***
July went so fast

***

I really hope my dad is ok

I want to do a poetry workshop

I think

I always have so much and also
nothing to say

closer to home

I love to draw and
I have no let go of that

write
cook
eat
so simple

focus on that
plus exercise
and kindness

***

my summer friend (Allegra)
we were very organized
we had lots of small plans
and crushes to follow at night
drunk boys on bikes
putting my bike in the garage
in the thick quiet
going to my room feeling
spooked and cooped up
window wide open
feeling the hot blue
come into my nest
I miss that room
with all my heart

I wonder when Livia will drop
the book she was reading before
she fell asleep
maybe she will sleep this whole
night through holding it as delicately
as she is now

I am really feeling time
I want to pause for a while
I have some battery powered candles